[mathking]

I think the doing things the hard way vs. doing things the easy way is a false dichotomy. Again, it is about how you use the resources available to you. I have a ton of former students working at cool places and they pretty much all started by learning Pascal, C++ or Java. The key is they learned how to analyze problems then develop and test good algorithms. Their are FRC teams that use all or almost all custom parts where very few students know how or why those parts are created. And teams that use all custom parts where many kids are involved in the design, fabrication and testing of those parts. I don't think there is an intrinsic "right way" and "wrong way" to do this. As I said, if you are part of this discussion you are probably aware enough of the issues to make sure your students learn.